Something big, parametric and shiny, standing on Daliowa Island in Wrocław since June. Do you know what is it? It’s NAWA. Since last month citizens of Wrocław can rest on the newly opened Daliowa Island, which until now has been forgotten, has regained its former glory. However, what is the most important for us, the main element of the revitalization which is the sculpture erected by Oscar Zieta’s studio.

The NAWA sculpture, which actually took a form of the urban pavilion, is the largest object entirely designed by using parametric design tools in Poland (and we even risk that in Europe). From the conceptual stage to the executive phase. We admire and reveal details below

First, a few words about the Oskar Zięta’s FIDU technology itself, which provided the optical lightness of the construction. It consists of 35 arches made of polished stainless steel. This material perfectly reflects the surrounding environment while providing an amazing sensation to our labyrinth when we are inside. Steel inflating technology, similar to beach mattress, also translates into the characteristic bends on its edges. As we are used to this kind of shapes in the soft materials, the sculpture is seen as ultra light. The tear-shaped cross section created by the air pumping process turns out to be a high co-efficient of structural strength to its weight. For this reason, it was possible to transport all the arches from the production hall on Kościerzyńska Street to Daliowa Island by waterway.

Let’s return to the earlier stage of designing the form itself. Apart from the proportions of the production technology itself (e.g. the minimum radius of curvature of the arc, the proportions of the teardrop section of the elements or the parameters of the material itself), the most important parameter was the shape of the NAWA and how it fits into the landscape. The difficult task of designing the form has been verified by the optimization of the object line in relation to the viewing axes carried out from the island and surrounding areas. Although optimizing on this issue seems to be quite a subjective concept, the analysis of hundreds of variants has allowed the final version to meet the aesthetic criteria. Generating further versions of the sculpture in a relatively short time was possible through the development of a number of scripts and plugins in the Grasshopper. For their development was responsible Mateusz Zwierzycki, which cooperated with Zieta Prozessdesign for many years.

It is also worth noting that outside the design phase, parametric tools were also used in the manufacture of the components themselves and in the construction documentation. This allowed not only the precise reproduction of the molded design, but also the instant updating of calculations and assembly drawings during industry agreements.

The effect of lasting several months interdisciplinary work of programmers, designers, technologists and contractors is an object, which in harmonic way fits into the surroundings on Daliowa Island in Wrocław. As the part of its revitalization, the sculpture became an part of the landscape, which was warmly welcomed by the citizens of Wroclaw. We hope for more realizations of this type.

And what do you think about NAWA?

Materials courtesy of Zieta Prozessdesign. More photos from production, as well as realization you can find on Facebook

For all you who likes to take apart in the most robotic event for designers as tutors we can recommend RobArch 2018 which take place at ETH in Zurich next year. If you have any experience with these workshops as a participant or tutor in previous years, share your opinion with us!!!

CALL for WORKSHOPS

ROB|ARCH 2018 now welcomes proposals for workshops. Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit proposals for two-day OR three-day workshops, which will be held September 10th – 12th, 2018 at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Workshop proposals with strong cross-disciplinary trajectories that actively integrate experts from multiple fields are highly encouraged.Deadline for submissions is September 8th, 2017. Visit ROB|ARCH 2018 websitefor more information and submission guidelines.

ABOUT ROB|ARCH

The ROB|ARCH 2018 conference and workshops will take place at ETH Zurich and are proudly hosted by the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, a cross-disciplinary research network leading the development and integration of digital technologies within the field of architecture. Against this background the conference will provide an ideal setting for a series of interdisciplinary workshops pushing the boundaries of the state-of-the-art in robotic fabrication. The ROB|ARCH workshops will allow for hands-on experience with the most current robotic technologies, offer a unique platform for dissemination of new knowledge, and provide an opportunity for researchers, practitioners and industry leaders to share and exchange expertise, explore methods, compare techniques and create new connections.

It has been already a month from the second edition of Shapes of Logic event, however, we can not miss the chance to write a few words about this unprecedented event in Poland. The second time (report from the 2015 you can find also in our website) research group LabDigiFab invited students, PhD candidates and designers from all over the world to participate in Shapes of Logic conference. This year the main topic was Everything that’s surround us can be automated. Lectures and presentations presented during the three days conference (26-28.05.2017), as well as the problems solved during the preceding workshops (22-25.05.2017), where connected with the topic of usage of the robots and computer programming in design process. The organizers were very pleased, that many PhD students and designers attended the event and their experience allowed to show the possibilities of automation and robotics in contemporary design process. More information about this topic you can also find on the LabDigiFab fanpage and the official website of the event.

The lectures of the two professors: Jerzy Rozenblit from The Univesity of Arizona and Thomas Bock from The Technical University of Munich have been met with great interest. Even though both of them usually work in the field of constructing a highly advanced (high-tech) robotics, they have presented the principles of working with the machines, which for most of the designers were known rather from the practical point of view. The completion of the theme was presentation of dr Johannes Braumann. The projects discussed by him during the speech has shown the full spectrum of possibilities in a creative usage of the machines.

The lectures of invited tutors, who agreed to lead two workshop’s clusters, turned out into great introduction of the evening discussion panels. This refers to presentation of Mateusz Zwierzycki and the group: Marvin Bratke, Paul Bart, Matthijas la Roi, who explained clearly on the basis of their own projects the unlimited possibilities which open up to the designers thanks to knowledge of programming languages.

During the four days of workshops Behavioural Network group learned how to use the space syntax analysis and the processing with Rhino and Grasshopper in therms of understanding and creating the new, better organized networks. New analitical and design tools were presented and implemented on the particular task what allowed the partcipans immediate practical usage of the theoretical knowledge. The intense work resulted in the three interesting and very different solutions for the revitalization and reconnection of the Grunwaldzki Campus in University of Wrocław.

In the same time, second group also had been focused on networks, with Owl library and Grasshopper plugin with a focus on scripting and writing .NET libraries. Using machine learning methods, participants tired to solve their own design problems.

The organizers were also very pleased to see that this year edition has gathered the most important polish specialists in the field of parametric design: Przemek Jaworski (Zmorph), Oskar Zięta (Zieta Prozessdesign), Michał Piasecki (tylko), again Mateusz Zwierzycki (CITA), Ewa Jankowska, Adrian Krężlik (Architectural Parametrics/Parametric Support) and Judyta Cichocka (Paramteric Support).

Just like two years ago the host of the conference was the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, where Gothic interior combined with the modern subject of presentations have allowed to contemplate not only available tools, but also the directions in which current creators are heading.

Almost 100 people took part into the event. We hope that the second edition is the announcement of the cyclic event and we will see each other again in 2019!

Museum of Architecture, Wrocław has become perfect background for discussion about design tools which are used nowadays by designers. During the international conference Shapes of logic, which has been placed in Wrocław in March 13th-15th, 2015, students and lecturers from Greece, USA, Italy, Austria, Slovakia, Canada, France, Netherlands and Poland showed us their presentation about parametric design. The conference was the biggest event of this kind in Poland (almost 100 participants). The conference was organized by students research group of digital fabrication LabDigiFab (www.labdigifab.com) and Student’s government of the Faculty of Architecture in Wrocław. Shapes of logic showed similar level of knowledge about parametric design in participants countries. This phenomenon allows to put Polish academic centers on an equal footing with foreign centers. A lot of interest and positive opinions about Shapes of logic encourage organizers to reissue Shapes of logic conference and workshops in 2016.

Three days conference program primarily included student academic presentations, which have been enriched by lectures of foreign guests like: Volker Mueller, Robert Vierlinger or co-founders of Italian group Code-it – Alessio Erioli & Andrea Graziano. We cannot forget about Polish representatives of parametric design including Mateusz Zwierzycki or Michał Piasecki.

Participants, guests and organizers evening meetings had been turned into all night discussions which resulted in establishing design and academic research cooperation. An innovative approach to make a discussion was oxford debate which took place on Friday. Participants began to exchange their opinions on theme: Do we need (virtual) reality? The debate was conducted by Prof. Aleksander Asanowicz from Białystok University of Technology. Discussion between two sides led to surprising conclusions which we are going to present here on next article.

Those of you who share our interest in parametric design, are welcome to follow LabDigiFab facebook fanpage where you can find information about our events. Here you can also find more Shapes of logic photos https://www.facebook.com/LabDigiFab?fref=ts